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Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta by Kate Braverman
Wk 2- The Effects of Addiction Paper [due Mon
An essay about addiction by cause and effect
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Recommended: Tall Tales from the Mekong Delta by Kate Braverman
Once an Addict . . . A sudden feeling of ecstasy; all of your senses are changed, transformed, falsely seeming to be true. Everything is really wonderful, powerful, creativity flows freely from your mind. You feel indestructible, confident, and prideful. The sun is jolly and as you inhale the air seems to suck through you effortlessly. Everything is blue, no, not blue with melancholy, this blue is "the blue that knows you and where you live and it's never going to forget" (107). The blue is the façade and excitement an addict gets from drugs. Addicts look for an escape, a better life, and something more gratifying, instantly. In Kate Braverman's short story "Tall Tales From the Mekong Delta," she describes one woman's struggle with drugs and how she eventually turns back to them after being sober for five months. Through examining the manipulative personality and changing appearance of the antagonist Lenny, the narrators longing for escape from the ordinary, and the influence of colors, it is evident that her temptations will get the better of her and destroy all that she tries to maintain when sober. Lenny is the essence of her addiction. When first introduced to Lenny, she describes him with some sort of disgust, he is undesirable to her. "He was short, fat, pale. He had bad teeth. His hair was dirty" (89). She isn't attracted to drugs anymore, they like Lenny, are disgusting. Lenny is there, always, wherever she looks, like a barnacle to a whale. He is a mystery that becomes a temptation, as though she always secretly wants him to be there. He confirms her desire to be there, " Yeah. You're glad to see me. You were hoping I'd be here. And here I am'" (91). Was she just thinking that? He said she was, so maybe she was, ma... ... middle of paper ... ...bolism of colors, her growing fondness of "Chameleon Lenny," right up to her first puff of the cigarette, it is evident that she will not be able to overcome her temptations and be drawn back into the world of drugs and alcohol, only more intense this time (93). She has seen the sober life and she isn't happy with it. Her cigarette smoking and drinking, although not illegal, will still conform to her downfall. You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it drink. At the beginning of the story we see hope for someone who brings cookies to her AA meetings, who sits and drinks coffee while her daughter is at dance practice, but unfortunately in the end, "There is only this infected blue enormity elongating defiantly" (107). Once an addict, always an addict, "When the glass was finished she would pour another. When the bottle was empty, she would buy another" (107).
From interviewing celebrities such as actress Kristen Johnston and politician Bill White, the film identified substance abuse can happen to anyone. I found more sympathy to those once I learned the facts, not opinions, of substance abuse users. It was interesting to find how the physiology of ones’ brain may change over time, thus proving it is not always a person’s free will of choice to use. People of addiction are like anyone else who may have fallen down the wrong path. Some who have found substance abuse for coping, did not realize they were becoming addicts. Others have found the media and advertisement placing pressure on them because it looks entertaining and fun. With limited outreach programs, it is crucial to increase the awareness among young groups for prevention. With fear of being judged, the stigma and health disparities of addiction cause many to not seek help. Equal opportunity should be available to everyone. As a future nurse, I find an important role for me is to lead in educating and being opened minded to the struggles of each one of my patients. My job is to refrain from stereotyping and being an advocate. As healthcare is always evolving to provide the most adequate care, I look forward towards the future as more people are educating and trying to eliminate those struggling through addiction
She first lies to doctors about substance abuse landing her support groups for substance abuse and a program to help her stay sober. This isn’t productive for Daphne and she grew tired of being bunched up with the addicts. She decides to come clean, of conscious and recant her exaggerated tales of alcohol and drug abuse before she was admitted into psychiatric care. This is however not seen as her coming clean, she isn’t better, the staff and patients believe the opposite in fact. Her pleas of sobriety and confessions of previous lies are seen as an addict denying their problem and a symptom of her substance abuse; incapable of admitting to herself and others that she has a
moreover, it shows us that she is like an animal that is trap in a cage suffering from the burden of not enjoying herself. Thus, lashing out at her husband while disregarding the danger she is putting her family through mentally traumatic events. As well as strains on the fact that she is not acknowledging the effects and extent of her addiction. Thus, shutting everyone out and eating herself apart. Therefore, she avoids discussing her issues with her husband on the movement to the city which might help with resolving her issue or lessen the magnitude of the stress she is going through.
In the end it seems as though there is no real moral or lesson to be learned. She wasn't really an addict; she just liked to drink. No long recovery, no epiphany. No treatment, no withdrawal problems. No lasting health issues. No real permanent problems in the end.
In James Baldwin's "Sonny's Blues" a pair of brothers try to make sense of the urban decay that surrounds and fills them. This quest to puzzle out the truth of the shadows within their hearts and on the streets takes on a great importance. Baldwin meets his audience at a halfway mark: Sonny has already fallen into drug use, and is now trying to return to a clean life with his brother's aid. The narrator must first attempt to understand and make peace with his brother's drug use before he can extend his help and heart to him. Sonny and his brother both struggle for acceptance. Sonny wants desperately to explain himself while also trying to stay afloat and out of drugs. Baldwin amplifies these struggles with a continuous symbolic motif of light and darkness. Throughout "Sonny's Blues" there is a pervasive sense of darkness which represents the reality of life on the streets of Harlem. The darkness is sometimes good but usually sobering and sometimes fearful, just as reality may be scary. Light is not simply a stereotypical good, rather it is a complex consciousness, an awareness of the dark, and somehow, within that knowledge there lies hope. Baldwin's motif of light and darkness in "Sonny's Blues" is about the sometimes painful nature of reality and the power gained from seeing it.
Satel tells us, “While theoretically anyone can become an addict, it is more likely the fate of some” (1). Amongst those in that category are women who were
In the setting of “Sonny’s Blues” the element of illusion is used to create above all a world of beauty, illness and horror. Baldwin uses the sense of sight in his work. Using colors of vast difference to express to his readers their definition of what good vs bad, and light vs dark is. However it is so much more than that, he gives his readers the opportunity to consider truth. He introduces Sonny a character who fall’s victim to subjectivity and bias. With the tremendous use if illusion and color, Baldwin paints a picture and Sonny’s character is reviled in an almost angelic way. This theme is prevalent throughout the story, and Baldwin’s use of illusion really captures the truth in the story. He uses such colors as yellow to signify the illness of the streets and the drugs that consume them in the character of Sonny’s friend. The color of blue is one that is used often in the story but in different contrasts; blue signifies the beauty of Sonny’s conquering to his addiction...
In the reality of the postmodern world, where nature is gone and has been replaced by technology, where the world and humankind have become fused with the machine, and the existence of morality and reality are uncertain, it is difficult to find hope for a better existence or motivation to attempt to change one's existence. Addiction then becomes a logical avenue of escape from these bleak circumstances--not affecting reality, but transforming it into something bearable. The addictions that Case turns to allow him to escape from the hard reality of his life th...
Andrea, her roommate, is seeking treatment from addiction to heroin and self-harm. Gwen refuses to having anything to do with the treatment center and group therapy. She believes she doesn’t have a drinking problem at all and therapy is silly. While still denying she has a problem, her boyfriend Jasper slips her a bottle of pills while visiting her. Gwen and Jasper leave the campus and have a night of partying. Gwen arrives back in her room the next morning clearly intoxicated. Cornell, the director of the rehab facility, confronts Gwen and informs her that she violated the rules of the facility. Gwen is told she is being kicked out of the program and is being sent to jail. She becomes outraged and denies that she has a problem and can quit whenever she chooses. Leaving the director’s office, she goes to her bedroom and decides to take the pills that Jasper slipped her. She ends up spitting out the pills and throwing the rest of the bottle out of the window.
Gwen Cummings lives in New York with her boyfriend Jasper. They drink and do drugs all night and usually ends up doing something that could harm themselves or others. Gwen’s risk taking behaviors gets worse and worse until she ends up ruining her sister Lily’s wedding and getting behind a car drunk. This choice ends with her driving through a house and she ends up in rehab. Gwen’s drug and drinking behaviors affect her whole life, even if she does not see it that way. She believes that she does not have a problem and that what she is doing is not wrong. It is not until after she is almost kicked out of rehab for jumping out the window to get drugs because she cannot handle the withdraw
It is eight a.m. and she has been up for hours at this point. The diarrhea is uncontrollable and her stomach is killing her. She needs to vomit again. Her bed is covered in sweat. Her body feels hot, but she is freezing cold. Her hands are shaking. Her legs are restless and her entire body aches as if she had been run over by a semi. She feels weak, both physically and mentally. Tears stream down her face because she hates herself. Addiction is the reason her mother has custody of her daughter, Abby. Most of her family and friends disown her. This drug has taken over her life. At this point, she is debating if everyone, including herself, would benefit from her suicide. Jenny was dope sick, suffering
Coming into the substance abuse meeting the student nurse was scared and nervous. She was scared of the reaction of the consumers and feared all the stereotypes she heard about typical alcoholics. Innervison gave the student nurse a new outlook on these types of consumers. She no longer looked at them as people who were just drunks and wanted to use AA as an excuse to make it seem like they are getting help. She never really looked at alcoholism as a true addiction; it seemed like more of an excuse to escape life’s problems. Sitting in and listening to these consumers gave the student nurse a dose of reality. The student nurse now understands alcoholism better and AA helped her realize recovery is truly a process that takes one day and one step at a time.
When first reading “Sonny’s Blues” by James Baldwin, it may initially seem that the relationship between musicians and drugs is synonymous. Public opinion suggests that musicians and drugs go hand and hand. The possibility lies that Sonny’s passion for jazz music is the underlying reason for his drug use, or even the world of jazz music itself brought drugs into Sonny’s life. The last statement is what the narrator believes to be true. However, by delving deeper and examining the theme of music in the story, it is nothing but beneficial for Sonny and the other figures involved. Sonny’s drug use and his music are completely free of one another. Sonny views his jazz playing as a ray of light to lead him away from the dim and dismal future that Harlem has to offer.
In conclusion, “Sonny’s Blues” is the story of Sonny told through his brother’s perspective. It is shown that the narrator tries to block out the past and lead a good “clean” life. However, this shortly changes when Sonny is arrested for the use and possession of heroin. When the narrator starts talking to his brother again, after years of no communication, he disapproves of his brother’s decisions. However, after the death of his daughter, he slowly starts to transform into a dynamic character. Through the narrator’s change from a static to a dynamic character, readers were able to experience a remarkable growth in the narrator.
At first glance, "Sonny's Blues" seems ambiguous about the relationship between music and drugs. After all, the worlds of jazz and drug addiction are historically intertwined; it could be possible that Sonny's passion for jazz is merely an excuse for his lifestyle and addiction, as the narrator believes for a time. Or perhaps the world that Sonny has entered by becoming involved in jazz is the danger- if he had not encountered jazz he wouldn't have encountered drugs either. But the clues given by the portrayals of music and what it does for other figures in the story demonstrate music's beneficial nature; music and drugs are not interdependent for Sonny. By studying the moments of music interwoven throughout the story, it can be determined that the author portrays music as a good thing, the preserver and sustainer of hope and life, and Sonny's only way out of the "deep and funky hole" of his life in Harlem, with its attendant peril of drugs (414).